Membrane separation technology for Flare Gas Recovery

The oil and gas industry is facing major challenges due to new regulations with respect to global climate protection efforts. Oil companies are desperately looking for solutions to reduce emissions, whether by increasing the efficiency of plant operations or by improving the utilization of by-products generated during oil and gas production.

During oil production, associated gas is produced during surface oil separation processes. Much of this associated gas is utilized or conserved because governments and oil companies have made substantial investments to capture it; nevertheless, some of it is flared because of technical or economic constraints. As a result, there are thousands of gas flares at oil production sites around the globe burn approximately 140 billion cubic meters of natural gas annually, causing more than 300 million tons of CO₂ to be emitted to the atmosphere.

Flaring of gas contributes to climate change and impacts the environment through emission of CO₂, black carbon, methane and other pollutants. It also wastes a lot of valuable energy resource that could be used to advance the sustainable development of producing countries. For example, if this amount of gas were used for power generation, it could provide about 750 billion kWh of electricity, or more than the African continent’s current annual electricity consumption. Because the Associated Gas is almost always heavy hydrocarbon rich (i.e. high C₃+ content), using it as energy source requires removal of heavy hydrocarbons (C₂+) as  NGL (Natural Gas Liquids).

PURAMEM® VOC offers a safe and efficient process for flare gas recovery with the lowest operating cost of any technology available. The membrane separates heavy hydrocarbons as Natural Gas Liquids (NGL), water or hydrogen sulphide from Methane, while keeping the Methane at pressure.

MEMBRANE PROPERTIES:

• Consistently high performance
  PURAMEM® VOC is an especially robust, spiral-wound module membrane, which is based on Evonik high-performance polymers, optimized for the specific applications. It features a stable performance over long time periods and challenging operating conditions.
• Flexible diameter
  Our membranes have been designed for conventional, membrane-based natural gas processing plants. As plug-in replacement for all standard membranes (7.95 to 8.3'') no further adaptations are required to the existing equipment.

• Environmentally friendly processing
• Safe process and simple start-up
• Increased product value
• Lower energy consumption
• No auxiliary materials such as water or sorbents required
• No emissions into the environment
• Separation at ambient temperature is possible
• Simple, modular setup
• Flexible and easily expanded

The World Bank's “Zero Routine Flaring by 2030” initiative commits governments and oil companies to end routine flaring by 2030. The main objective is to support cooperation between all relevant stakeholders so that solutions to gas flaring can be successfully implemented through appropriate regulation, application of technologies, and financial arrangements. By offering its innovative PURAMEM® VOC membrane separation technology for flare gas recovery, Evonik enables the energy industry to cut CO₂ emissions and supports the World Bank's “Zero Routine Flaring by 2030” initiative.